bd livewire quickdraws or petzl spirit express?

i'm trying to decide on a new set of key lock quick draws and i'm having trouble deciding between the 2 mentioned above. has anyone used both or swear by one or the other?

The Spirits have something close to a cult following, I'm sure some members will chime in shortly. That said, I'm ready to replace the dogbones on my BD draws with the Petzls, I really dislike those little buttfloss dogbones. As far as the biners, there's no discernible difference, IMHO.

Yesterday tom Hanson took me to task about my still neon-colored (albeit faded) Petzl dogbones from the late 80's. I haven't whipped in ages and ages. Am I going to die?

ditto basically what ryan said. biners are comparable but the super thin webbing draws totally blow. mike, i have a pile of those old neon petzl bones in my closet. some day i am going to pull them apart and see how they do. they are pretty beat up and i was getting to the point they kind of freaked me out when i was about to whip.

There's a guy on RC.com that'll pull-test those for you and post up the resul... oh, nevermind.

Since it sounds like no one here has even seen a BD livewire, let alone use one since they are complaining about the dental floss dyneema which the livewires don't even have, I'll chime in with my opinion. Both use a thick nylon dogbone so not much difference there, although the rubber draw stiffener is slightly different on both designs. I prefer the Petzl version that goes on the outside, the Bd ones stretch out after a while and don't hold the biner as well. The only major difference between the 2 is that the livewire uses a wiregate biner on the rope side while the spirits use a solid bent game. I much prefer to clip a wiregate so that give the firewire 1 advantage. Most of my rack consists of a BD positron keylock on the bolt end with a BD firewire on the rope end with Petzl dogbones. Imo it give you the benefit of both and even when pieced together is cheaper than either the spirit or livewire. I personally don't like the stiff gates of the petzls compared to the BD biners, so IMO my setup is perfect.

redlude97 wrote:Since it sounds like no one here has even seen a BD livewire, let alone use one since they are complaining about the dental floss dyneema which the livewires don't even have...

Yeah, I guess they changed them. Up until checking right now I haven't seen non-floss BD draws since they came en vogue. All my BD dogbones look like this:

Here's what the Livewires used to look like:

caughtinside wrote: crap. no inline linking.

noob.

Ryan Kelly wrote:Here's what the Livewires used to look like:

Are you sure you aren't confusing them with the hotwire qds? IIRC BD's original wiregate has always been called the hotwire
Edit: you're right upon closer inspection those are livewire wiregates and not hotwires.

redlude97 wrote:Since it sounds like no one here has even seen a BD livewire, let alone use one since they are complaining about the dental floss dyneema which the livewires don't even have, I'll chime in with my opinion. Both use a thick nylon dogbone so not much difference there, although the rubber draw stiffener is slightly different on both designs. I prefer the Petzl version that goes on the outside, the Bd ones stretch out after a while and don't hold the biner as well. The only major difference between the 2 is that the livewire uses a wiregate biner on the rope side while the spirits use a solid bent game. I much prefer to clip a wiregate so that give the firewire 1 advantage. Most of my rack consists of a BD positron keylock on the bolt end with a BD firewire on the rope end with Petzl dogbones. Imo it give you the benefit of both and even when pieced together is cheaper than either the spirit or livewire. I personally don't like the stiff gates of the petzls compared to the BD biners, so IMO my setup is perfect.

thanks, seems like a wash... appreciate the input. i think i'll do the mix and match as well.

I have both on my rack. I would get the one that has the best deal going at the time.

If I had to give one the edge, I'd say I preffer the Spirit's more traditional asym. D shape. But this is so neglible it doesn't matter.

EVan

Isn't a draw a draw?

JP Rohde wrote:i'm trying to decide on a new set of key lock quick draws and i'm having trouble deciding between the 2 mentioned above. has anyone used both or swear by one or the other?

If you're planning on spending a lot of money, which it seems that you are, then you should get a bunch of Wild Country Helium biners and then buy the Petzl dogbones. Best sport draw available.

Ryan Williams wrote: If you're planning on spending a lot of money, which it seems that you are, then you should get a bunch of Wild Country Helium biners and then buy the Petzl dogbones. Best sport draw available.

Best sport setup ever: spirit straight gate for bolt end, BD vari-width dogbones (basically the same as the petzl ones), and heliums for the rope end.

Nick Rhoads wrote:Isn't a draw a draw?

I see what you're doing there.

shoo wrote: Best sport setup ever: spirit straight gate for bolt end, BD vari-width dogbones (basically the same as the petzl ones), and heliums for the rope end.

Even for sport clipping? I like the heliums for extendo-draws if I use the little dynema butt-floss slings, because it gets caught in the notch on normal wire-gates. But I've never had a problem with the rope getting snagged, obviously. What's the benefit?

Ryan Kelly wrote: I see what you're doing there.

Seriously, not trolling here. As long as the biners are notch-less who cares which quickdraw it is?

Apparently this actually makes a difference to people though as evidenced by this thread. What's wrong with any old quickdraw?

i just buy the cheapest ... or the lightest that are easy to clip

there is no functional diff between cheap and expensive other than weight and ease of clip

bearbreeder wrote:i just buy the cheapest ... or the lightest that are easy to clip there is no functional diff between cheap and expensive other than weight and ease of clip

Isn't that the whole point? I mean if they made cheap biners that were light and nice to clip... what would expensive biners be?

I had a set of draws that were made from dynema and they always twisted a bit.... So annoying that i got rid of them and switch to Petzl Sprits.